


To Love With Impunity

by ThyErasmusBeDelivered (D20Owlbear)



Series: Warlock TV, Novelizations and Fics [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Slow Show - mia_ugly, Warlock the TV Show (Slow Show) - Fandom
Genre: Erasmus is pining, In-universe fic, M/M, Pine scented, Rated T for feelings hitting erasmus in the face like a Truck, and yes we stan Uriel enabling our gay asses in this house, but what if Erasmus was too, hahaha jk, interspersed scenes, metafic, no I don’t take criticism, seasons 3-5, the piniest scenes, unleeessss, we know William was gagging for it, yes Joshua is a deus ex machina, yes its the same tree from s5, yes that willow tree is by Neath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:27:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22329310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/D20Owlbear/pseuds/ThyErasmusBeDelivered
Summary: William falling in love and lust throughout season 3 and beyond is a major plot point. Erasmus does the same, he can't help it, but remains willfully ignorant for as long as he can.Turns out, it's not very long. Erasmus pines back in secret.
Relationships: Erasmus/William (Warlock - Slow Show)
Series: Warlock TV, Novelizations and Fics [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1712140
Comments: 19
Kudos: 61
Collections: Ixnael’s Recommendations, Ixnael’s SFW corner, Slow Show Metaverse, Warlock fic





	To Love With Impunity

**Author's Note:**

> Set in _Warlock_ , the tv show from HBO in mia_ugly's [Slow Show](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20395261)

Erasmus is drinking and he’s drowning his fears and his grief in watery ale. He’s still coated in ash and the taste of acrid smoke lingers in his mouth and nose in a way even alcohol can’t seem to wash out. There is a tightness in his chest he doesn’t think is from the smoke he breathed in from the collapsing church but can’t quite place it. He knows he should go back to Julia, find her and Joshua and flee from this town, but he can’t bring himself to tell them what’s happened to William. Can’t bring himself to think much about it, except he wishes that was the truth because all he can think about is not being able to find William, of the feeling of burnt fingers and palms pressed tightly against a rough-hewn wood tankard in any desperate attempt for penance. 

The door creaks open and for some reason, Erasmus looks up, for the first time since he sat down at this shadowed table in the corner. His hand falls slack from the tankard and he pays no attention to the bloody handprint left on the wood as he stumbles to stand. His arms shake and his legs tremble with relief as he chokes out, “I thought you were– I couldn’t find you.”

He doesn’t remember what is said next, just that he leaves invisible streaks of blood and char on the back of William’s dark cassock as he pulls the priest into a tight embrace, leaning all of his weight onto the man he thought he’d lost.

* * *

Julia and Joshua are sleeping and, once more, William and Erasmus are arguing through clenched teeth with hissing breaths. The space between them is small and sharp, filled with tension of some unnamable sort. Erasmus thinks he could cut it with a knife, but he’s almost afraid of what would happen if he did. He doesn’t know what to expect anymore, not with the way William looks at him with bright eyes and his attention so wholly turned onto him. Sometimes he feels like the back of his neck is on fire and he doesn’t dare to turn around and find William’s eyes on him, doesn’t dare to acknowledge this  _ thing _ between them.

But can’t help but think these unnamed thoughts when there’s no one else around, when their tempers are high, when they’re so close together and saying everything but what they’re thinking in the deepest parts of themselves. Erasmus has been with men before, he’s been with women too, equal in his desire for both but his desire for William feels like something more in a way he cannot and will not name. He carefully thinks it is because he’s never had such a stalwart group of companions until now. 

William panics and reels back, whispering harshly about those they need to warn and save, in a misguided attempt to give him some sort of out as if he needs one. As if Erasmus is not totally and wholly lost to this group of haphazard and wayward souls that fit so well into all the jagged, puzzle-piece parts of his own.

“They’re in this room,” he says, just a little too loudly and he cuts himself off from anything further to pull his volume back down as Julia stirs and Joshua whines in their sleep. “Everyone I love. They’re in this room.” It feels too real and raw, and he thinks that he hopes William can’t see all the things he’s saying with his eyes that he doesn’t fully understand either.

* * *

“If there’s trouble–” William glances between his hands, his fingers twisting and wringing where they’re clasped in front of him, and Erasmus’ face. The trees are silent and the space between them is all too heavy. 

“Get a message to me,” William breathes urgently, breaking the stillness of the frozen night air after it’s gone on for what feels like an eternity, “Wherever you are, I’ll come to you.”

“I’ll find you. You believe me?” Erasmus asks lowly, nerves alight and his fingers shaking like a tree freshly struck by lightning as he meets William’s eyes. He breathes in, too loudly in this stale-air night in a forest that feels suddenly too small.

“I do.”

“You do,” Erasmus snorts, tearing his gaze away from William and turning his head to look at the lantern he holds in his hand, shifting from foot to foot, “Thought you were losing faith, priest.”

“Not in you.” William says it so resolutely, as if there were no other way it could possibly be. As if such belief is only natural in someone like Erasmus, a conman by trade and unforgivable by nature according to William’s faith. As if he were someone worthy of such unwavering loyalty.

It strikes him in the gut and the air is pulled from his lungs and he gasps internally as he claws at the reality around him. He feels the world shift around him and a sudden, sharp and painful clarity rings like a death knell in his head.  _ Fuck _ . He steps back to catch himself, dizzy and off-balance and he hopes it looks like he’s starting to leave.

Erasmus knows he’s lost if his face holds any semblance of the overwhelming longing that is welling up in him, overflowing from the space in his chest that has been wound tighter and tighter for the last year, since he thought William was lost to him–to them–in the church fire. He’s sprung a leak in the dam holding back these feelings and all the strength behind it is like a raging inundation of tides through barren plains and there’s nothing to hold it back anymore from flooding him. 

He didn’t think about all of this for this  _ exact _ reason, and he curses himself for letting it through now of all times. Erasmus wishes he could return the thought from where it came, that he could shift his paradigm back to where it was, and he could be willfully ignorant of himself and his feelings once more. 

And so he says nothing more, just hopes his face doesn’t betray him like he knows it does, and bends to pick up his pack. All the things in this world that belong to him are bound up tightly in waxed hide beaten to hell and back. He steps away once more, feeling possessed and separate from his body, he puts more space between them. Their gaze only breaks as William turns his eyes away like he can’t bear to watch him leave, and Erasmus lopes off into the night, snuffing out the lantern as he goes. 

After only a half-mile of travel, he falls back against the rough bark of a nearby tree, hand covering his eyes letting out a low, breathy, “ _ Fuck _ .”

* * *

Erasmus is on his own for the rest of the year, routing the Inquisition where he can and acting the saboteur, and it feels like his entire life has lead up to now. All the years of honing his skills for the next con, for the next trick, for the next pull has gotten him here, finally making something of his life. He is finally fighting for a family he’s lashed to his heart with the thick cables that tie ships to their moorings. He’s anchored to them no matter where they wander and his thoughts stray back to them no matter how far his travels take him. 

The night is dark and Erasmus has taken refuge in the high branches of a willow tree that overhangs a lake that sits utterly still. The town nearby is filled with people with accents like William and he can’t help but think about the priest, his heart pulling at his chest somewhere towards his  _ family,  _ as if he were nothing but a compass that pointed to William. He can’t sleep, doesn’t even try, not when his thoughts are so far from calm and he whips himself up into yet another frenzy of worry for the only people in this world that might ever be capable of ripping his heart in two. In thirds, really.

He thinks about Joshua, and hopes that the ragdoll rabbit made from his old tunic is still there tucked in grubby hands and dragged over hill and dale. He thinks about Julia, and wishes she were here with him to offer some sort of comfort either in companionable silence by a crackling fire or bickering good-naturedly. And he thinks about William, and yearns for his company and the lightning-charged space perpetually between them. He hates that he only let himself admit the extent of his feelings, even if only in the quiet of his heart, just before they were separated. It was by necessity, but Erasmus hates this nonetheless.

Ten days later he has a dream, of fire and churches and the Inquisition. He wakes with a conviction that feels foreign but he feels it in his bones and cannot shake it. He doesn’t know why he turns off the path and into the thick of the woods to the north, but he does it anyway.

In another ten days, he finds a village under attack, and there is fire and the Inquisition, and so he looks desperately and hopelessly for the only church he’s ever wanted to worship at the altar of. Flinging himself into the battle with only a rusty shortsword at his hip, his wits about him (and not fully knowing why or believing he’ll find what or who he wants). Everything is slowed by anxiety and worry for the three pieces of his heart he’s been lost to for nearly a year. He finds one of them, the bright blond priest who is nearly beheaded by some Inquisition soldier as he is bent over a wounded girl.

His sword makes it, just barely in time, and he nearly trips at the weight of the soldier’s blow but manages to parry the sword and situate himself at William’s back. The gentle heat of the priest, imagined or not, warms his bones and melts his soul like the Spring sun in ways he hadn’t known he missed in his cold, winter world alone. His heart yearns for the blazing summer of Joshua and the comforting autumn of Julia to complete him once more.

If asked later, Erasmus couldn’t recount how exactly he fought off the soldier, but he knows it was luck pure and simple. He’s thin and starved and haggard from his days and nights alone on the road in ways he almost resents because he wouldn’t have been so poorly off before he met his heart’s seasons, but cannot truly be upset by having been changed by them because it was for the better, he hopes.

But the girl at William’s feet is too far gone to save, and William looks on the brink of exhaustion, and all Erasmus can do is turn to him, take his hand and pull the priest to his feet so that they can run. He doesn’t know this village, these people, and William looks at him stunned and doesn’t argue with him when he tugs at his hand, but neither does he step forward. Their eyes meet truly and Erasmus can see his own surprise and disbelief at seeing him again mirrored in William’s eyes with the sheen of recognition and gratitude for his sword and arm. But then it changes into terror and Erasmus tries to cry out but there’s no air left in his lungs to do so.

His back is on fire and the pain overtakes his ability to stand. His sword drops to the ground with a clatter too loud to make sense on an active battlefield, and his knees buckle and he tilts towards the ground. Cold and feeling like winter and William catches him, because of course he does. The man is truly a godsend, if Erasmus were willing to believe in such things, but he thinks that, with the sun shining behind William’s head and the curls of hair so blond it’s nearly white, that if he has ever seen the face of heaven, this is it. 

His own face is spattered with blood and sweat and the black char of smoke and ash has turned to mud across his body, smearing his face with the sin surely seeping from his body. He looks up at William, his mouth is moving but he cannot hear if anything is being said at all. But William is safe, at least for now, and even if he grimaces from the pain when he tries to smile it will be alright. He’s happy to die, and he can feel this in his newly-thawed soul that this is his end, as long as the thirds of his heart are safe. 

* * *

The night falls over a muddy battlefield. William kneels over Erasmus and breathes for the first time in what feels like forever.

“You’re alive. I saved you,” William’s words tumble from his lips with an urgency Erasmus can’t fully parse. “I did. You’re alive.”

“Wha– how?” Erasmus slurs, no longer half-dead or slated to die in full.

“The boy.”

Erasmus breathes heavily through his nose and his head lolls back, dizzy from blood loss and relief, as he pushes himself up onto his elbows. Their faces are so close together, and his breath leaves his lungs just like it had when he first realized he was in love with this man, and it takes him a few moments to reorient himself and realize he’s not physically falling again. 

“The boy,” William repeats, “ He’s the plague.”

The priest raises his hands, swearing his oath of truthfulness on the air, “That’s why they’re so frightened. I did it. I did what he can do.”

Erasmus attempts to interject but William continues on, “It spreads.” Erasmus nearly dies again as William cards his fingers through his sweat-and-blood dampened hair, off of his forehead, and his other hand cupping his cheek like something infinitely precious. Erasmus wonders if he’ll ever remember how to breathe again. “When you’re around him for long enough. It’s spreading.”

“What is?” Erasmus murmurs, dazed, his eyes heavily lidded and focused on William’s pink lips. He nearly died and his willpower is all but useless in the face of such temptation. It takes everything in him not to surge forward and steal a kiss.

“Magic.” William replies lowly. And then he leans forward and Erasmus gasps as their foreheads touch, his eyes flutter and he is infinitely disappointed to the very depths of himself that their lips do not meet, but they breathe the same air and that will have to be enough. He times every inhale so that he can take in the air from William’s lungs and fills himself with the man in every way he can.

“I thought you were gone. I thought I’d lost you.”

“You never could,” Erasmus breaths out, voice wet with blood that still drips from his mouth. “You never will.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“Can’t I? Thought you were magical now. Aren’t you gonna keep me safe?”

“I will. If I can, I will.”

“Well then.” Erasmus’ hand shakes as he reaches out, held back by rusting iron will and the desperate wish to never push William away, and dyes the side of the priest’s face with blood and ash from his fingertips that push into his hair, tucking a curl behind his ear. "Nothing to worry about."

* * *

Their first kiss is nothing like what Erasmus is expecting, but it’s everything he could have hoped for.

“Oh, you– you fool! It’s much too cold to be in the water!” William scolds him, hands hot and warm and burning on Erasmus’ icy skin after such a long stint in mountain-runoff river.

“Well excuse me, your holiness–” Erasmus is cut off with a sharp, blistering, hot pain on his lips, frozen and blue. He can’t help the soft moan that escapes his throat as William’s kiss breathes new life into him, filling his body with the spring-warmth stolen by winter-water.

**Author's Note:**

> [Come find me on Tumblr here!](https://d20owlbear.tumblr.com/)


End file.
